Contents

Desktop

Linux has been more than competitive with Windows for a decade, thanks in part to the Apache Web server. It is more than competitive on tablets and phones, thanks to Google’s Android, now being forked by Amazon and Baidu. It gets laughed at, and perhaps rightly so, because it’s week on the desktop. “This is the year of desktop Linux,” is a running gag.

Despite what we’ve read in various Linux articles lately, there’s a world beyond Ubuntu and their Unity desktop experience. Fact is, you can actually still stick with Ubuntu if you choose to and not feel obligated to use their choice for a desktop experience.

In short, Unity isn’t mandatory for people who want access to the rest of the Ubuntu experience. In this article, I’ll show how you can take part in the benefits of using Ubuntu without limiting your desktop experience to Ubuntu’s ideals.

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On my desktop, I rely on Compiz Fusion. So the idea of using a dock that relies on that technology was a natural fit for me. In the end, I wound up with the Awn dock due to its useful functionality. Not only can I duplicate almost anything that Gnome panels or Unity might have to offer, but I can theme my Awn dock to look more appealing.

Server

OpenFOAM (Open Source Field Operation and Manipulation) basically is a set of C++ libraries that are used in the various processing steps. OpenFOAM, just like most other CFD packages, breaks down the work to be done into three separate steps. The first step is called pre-processing. In pre-processing, you define the problem you are trying to model. This involves defining the boundary conditions given by the solid objects in your model. You also describe the characteristics of the fluid you are trying to model, including viscosity, density and any other properties that are important for your model. The next step is called the solver step. This is where you actually solve the equations that describe your model. The third step is called post-processing. This is where you take a look at the results and visualize them so that you can see what happens in your model. An obvious consequence of this breakdown is that most of the computational work takes place during the solver phase. The pre- and post-processing steps usually can be done on a desktop, while the solver step easily can use up 50 or 100 processors. OpenFOAM includes several pre- and post-processing utilities, along with several solvers. But the real power comes from the fact that, because OpenFOAM is library-based, you can build your own utilities or solvers by using OpenFOAM as a base. This is very useful in a research environment where you may be trying something no one else ever has.

Kernel Space

Applications

Synapse is a semantic launcher similar to Gnome Do or Kupfer, powered by Zeitgeist. It comes with many plugins for controlling Rhythmbox or Banshee, connect to SSH hosts, upload to Imgur, search the web, Dictionary and more.

First I would like to start by saying all of the below systems offer data encryption and redundant servers to make sure your data is safe. They offer good pricing and have comparable up-time guarantees. I have tried these systems out either by using them in my businesses or by playing with them to find out which one is the right one for me. All pricing was at the time of writing this article.

Perhaps you’ve been ripping CDs for a long enough time that you’ve already settled on your ripper of choice. But Asunder doesn’t deserve to be ignored. It rips and encodes to a wide variety of formats and uses CDDB to name and tag each track. Also, Asunder lets you encode to multiple formats in one session.

The webcam has become an essential accessory for every computer user. The tiny camera above your monitor helps you chat and ‘hangout’ with all your friends from across the world or turn it into a security spy camera. Another great thing about webcams is that they help you snap your own picture without getting up from your chair. For workaholics, a webcam is a great tool to stay in touch with their colleagues and even hold meetings with them. Being this indispensable, the software for it has to be just as good as the hardware.

Games

Tiny & Big in : Up that Mountain is an innovative Physics based game for Linux with a very artistic visual style. The game features hand drawn textures and highly appealing comics-like cel-shaded graphics.

Desktop Environments

GNOME Desktop

AS a user of Ubuntu Linux since 1996, I viewed with some trepidation the decision by its commercial sponsor, Canonical, to revamp its user interface, which was based on the Gnome desktop. Over the years, I’ve grown accustomed to Gnome’s simple elegance, which I found gave me a surprising amount of freedom to customize my desktop environment. Combined with special effects from programs such as Compiz and Emerald, my Gnome-based Ubuntu desktop was truly beautiful.

But starting with the current release (11.04), Ubuntu began sporting the Unity interface, a system that Canonical designed from scratch, obviously with an eye to touch-screen functionality and the simplicity of point-and-drag menus favored by smart phone users.

Color management on Linux used to be a thing for brave boys and girls in the past. Two years ago the GNOME Color Manager project led by Richard Hughes and powered by Argyll color management system made a major breakthrough to fix it once and for all. Now that GNOME 3.2 is just a week away, we decided to corner Richard and ask him some very direct questions.

Red Hat Family

The earnings calendar is unusually busy this week, with a number of big names on the schedule. Any time you can find Nike (NYSE:NKE), FedEx (NYSE:FDX), and Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) in the same week, things could be interesting.

One of the smaller names on the docket this week is Red Hat (NYSE:RHT). The open-source business software maker reports on Wednesday after the close.

Red Hat last announced its quarterly results on Wednesday, June 22nd. The company reported $0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the previous quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $0.22 EPS by $0.02. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 26.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Red Hat will post $0.25 EPS next quarter.

The Open Virtualization Alliance, a consortium committed to fostering the adoption of open virtualization technologies, today announced total membership of more than 200, up from 65 in just over three months. New members include CA Technologies, DataStax and Jaspersoft.

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth announced Wayland graphical server for Ubuntu, the Linux distribution, in fall 2010. Wayland for Ubuntu news made headlines. But almost a year later, Wayland for Ubuntu remains in development and the venerable X server won’t be going anywhere soon — which is not surprising, since replacing a display system that has dominated the open source world for decades is hard work. But when can we expect Wayland for Ubuntu to hit the mainstream? Read on for some updates.

The Ubuntu Vancouver Local Community believes that one barrier to the widespread adoption of Ubuntu’s ethos and its collection of outstanding software is a shortage of well-written and accessible user guides. Guides that make people say “Wow! I didn’t know Ubuntu is that easy. I didn’t know Ubuntu could make my life easier and more fun!”

The Ubuntu Software Center is one of the most important components of Ubuntu. It’s the entry point for new users into the universe of excellent software that is written with freedom in mind. It’s our delivery channel. It’s an Ubuntu first (now copied by a fruit company), and it’s full of amazing.

Flavours and Variants

Texas Instruments (TI) announced three ARM Cortex-A8 system on chips (SoCs) featuring a camera imaging subsystem, a wide range of peripheral support including CAN-bus, and an optional evaluation board. Aimed at industrial applications, the Linux- and Android-ready AM387x triplets all feature 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 cores, while two of them offer video subsystems and the top-of-the-line AM3874 is endowed with a 3D accelerator.

Phones

As part of a drive to increase the reach of its own brand OS, the firm has let slip its plan to release Bada to developers and device makers. The change will occur sometime next year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Android

According to the information the Galaxy SIII will come with a quad-core , yes quad not dual, 2.0 Ghz processor and a whopping 1.5GB of RAM. The multi-tasking performance of such a device will be incredible and we’re already excited about the gaming prospects of the device.

Many writers and bloggers often need to jot down important ideas that they come across. For years, people have relied on notepads, sticky notes and even paper napkins. Even though the traditional method is the best, there are some tech-savvy folks like us who prefer using their smartphones to do the same. If you’re one of those people, then here are some of the best Android applications for capturing new ideas and thoughts.

Android is ubiquitous because it is free and not because it is open source. Except for the popular Cyanogen mods, the FOSS aspect has largely been ignored by most of the ODM’s. Witness the poor implementations of Android devices by Archos, Augen, Camangi, and countless other Tier Three AKA Chinese manufacturers and the animosity towards UI’s like Sense and MotoBLUR. If the FOSS was so easy to take advantage of then why are only a handful of developers able to deliver a customer experience that was comparable to Google’s? And even Cyanogen AKA Steve Kondik only bothered to modify the ‘with Google’ version.

Sub-notebooks/Tablets

Google is preparing Android developers for the latest edition of its Android mobile operating platform that will work the same on both tablets and smartphones.

Scott Main, the lead tech writer for Google’s Android Developers Blog, Monday reminded developers that the newest edition of Android — dubbed “Ice Cream Sandwich” — will “support big screens, small screens and everything in between.” Main also emphasized that Android would maintain “the same version … on all screen sizes” going forward.

Early this year, Honeycomb (Android 3.0) launched for tablets. Although Honeycomb remains tablets-only, the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) release will support big screens, small screens, and everything in between. This is the way Android will stay from now on: the same version runs on all screen sizes.

Brazil, Russia, India and China all have governments that support use of FLOSS for many different reasons: cost, security, local economies and building IT infrastructure. They also contain 40% of the global market for PCs and have high rates of growth.

Events

For those that missed out on attending XDC2011 Chicago in person or missed out on the Phoronix coverage due to the Intel Developer Forum and other events taking place last week, here’s a re-cap of the interesting bits of information that were revealed during this year’s developers conference that focused upon open-source graphics drivers, GPGPU / OpenCL computing, and open-source OpenGL 3.0 driver support being just around the corner. Here’s also a collection of photos from the event.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

Mozilla, not content with its monumental shift from four major builds in five years down to a new stable build every six weeks, is looking at outputting a new release every five weeks, or perhaps even less.

Christian Legnitto, a project manager at Mozilla (and currently the “release manager” of Firefox), announced the intention to shift to a shorter release cycle on Mozilla’s planning mailing list. In response to one developer citing the success of the six-week release cycle, and asking whether it would be feasible to speed it up even further, Legnitto said: “Yes, I absolutely think in the future we will shorten the cycle,” but recognizing the pains caused by the sped-up process, he added “But it won’t be soon. We have some work to do to make 6 weeks smooth from a process, tool, and product side.”

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

One of the patents asserted in the Oracle v. Google case, U.S. Patent No. 5,966,702 [PDF], is subject to an ex parte reexamination as we have earlier reported. Oracle has now filed their response [PDF] to the first office action [PDF] in this reexamination. Not surprisingly, Oracle contends that the art cited by the examiner in the first office action is not relevant and that all of the claims should reissue as is.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

But Stallman mentions open source with his little air quotes to make sure that when he’s talking about non-free software, he’s also lumping open source with proprietary software in that descriptor. It’s not enough that he disagrees with open source (which is his right, of course), but he also needs to belittle it as much as possible.

Public Services/Government

NASA said it will coordinate with other interested space agencies around the world on an International Space Apps Challenge that will encourage scientists and concerned citizens from all seven continents – and in space – to create, build, and invent new applications that can address world-class issues.

The number of open source applications installed by default on desktop PCs of public administrations in Malta has increased by 47 percent, between December 2009 and May 2011, says Michel Bugeja, enterprise architect at Malta’s Information Technology Agency (MITA). “The biggest increase is on tools to handle PDFs, for creating diagrams, for mind mapping and for project management.”

The UEFI secure boot protocol is part of recent UEFI specification releases. It permits one or more signing keys to be installed into a system firmware. Once enabled, secure boot prevents executables or drivers from being loaded unless they’re signed by one of these keys. Another set of keys (Pkek) permits communication between an OS and the firmware. An OS with a Pkek matching that installed in the firmware may add additional keys to the whitelist. Alternatively, it may add keys to a blacklist. Binaries signed with a blacklisted key will not load.

Hardware

Executives from Intel’s PC partners – Acer Taiwan president Scott Lin and Compal Electronics president Ray Chen both have invoked Intel to help drop the Ultrabook price to below US$1,000 by reducing the CPU price.

Finance

Underwriters or sponsors of asset-backed securities would be banned for one year from taking positions to profit from investors’ losses under a plan released by U.S. securities regulators on Monday.

The proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission would get at the very heart of issues raised by U.S. Senate investigators in a report earlier this year that accused Goldman Sachs of positioning itself to profit from clients’ losses on complex securities that it packaged and sold.

The proposal would also prohibit the kinds of conflicts that were seen in the SEC’s civil case against Goldman in 2010 by banning third parties from helping assemble an asset-backed pool that would let those parties profit from investors’ losses.

There seems to be quite a few tech companies in trouble these days. In fact, in an article published yesterday on 24/7 Wall Street, tech firms represent six out of the eight major companies listed as being in troubled financial waters. There aren’t any surprises here for anyone who’s been paying attention, but a year or so ago most of us wouldn’t have suspected that some of these companies would even be capable of falling on hard times.

Intellectual Monopolies

Apparently the Game Show Network felt it could just steal another company’s property by having a computer match, rank and distribute awards to competing contestants based on their relative skill levels. They obviously need to pay dearly for this moral outrage…

Dean Baker takes issue with a Washington Post story link here on doctors shilling for drugs and drug companies paying them big money to push greater use of their drug including for uses prohibited by FDA link here.

The Post article is a routine description (“fair and balanced” as the big papers like to claim) leading to the fact that the doctors are well-paid for what amounts to treating patients while never seeing them. In some cases they push uses that are criminal, as when they recommend or prescribe a drug for unapproved use.

Anti-Trust

Microsoft requires that machines conforming to the Windows 8 logo program and running a client version of Windows 8 ship with secure boot enabled. … A system that ships with only OEM and Microsoft keys will not boot a generic copy of Linux.

[Critics] analogize Google’s conduct today to that of Microsoft’s during the 1990s. That sounds appealing but it could not be more wrong…. Let’s remember the past. (I should, I was an FTC staff attorney who worked on the FTC Microsoft investigation in the early 1990s). … In its 1998 case the DOJ condemned a wide variety of exclusionary conduct, carried out (in Microsoft’s words) to “cut off the air supply” of its rivals. In particular Microsoft tied its browser to its operating system to safeguard its operating system monopoly and extend it to the web. Microsoft compelled customers to purchase products they did not want and created obstacles for rival browsers to work effectively.

So when do Florian Mueller and the TurboHercules trolls come by and tell me they are sorry they were wrong and sincerely apologize to me for filling the Internet and Groklaw comments with attacks on me because I said nothing ought to come of the complaints against IBM? Should I hold my breath for an apology? No. But it turns out the EU Commission confirms my position. It all came to nothing…. Well. Nothing but FUD.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

Presumably the BSA and other groups focused on “promoting responsible business practices including respect for intellectual property” have lost all of their credibility or the company needs a new fake independent FUD and threat source.

In the past, non-practicing entities (NPEs) — firms that license patents without producing goods — have facilitated technology markets and increased rents for small inventors. Is this also true for today’s NPEs? Or are they “patent trolls” who opportunistically litigate over software patents with unpredictable boundaries? Using stock market event studies around patent lawsuit filings, we find that NPE lawsuits are associated with half a trillion dollars of lost wealth to defendants from 1990 through 2010, mostly from technology companies. Moreover, very little of this loss represents a transfer to small inventors. Instead, it implies reduced innovation incentives.

We all know patent trolls waste everyone’s time and money, leech off the productive and innovative, and are generally annoying. If you’re into the independent software development scene at all, you probably support a few developers that have been trolled. It’s expensive and wasteful and we all know it — well, we all have anecdotal evidence to support that claim anyway, but now, thanks to researchers at Boston University, we now have a study we can point to and that study shows innovators have lost $500 billon to patent trolls since 1990.

Mike Masnick took on the issue and Glyn Moody was another taker, so Techrights is unlikely to have much to add. Moody writes:

Aside from the patent trolls themselves, few have a good word for them, since it’s pretty obvious to everyone that they suck money out of companies that make stuff, and thus act as a brake on real innovation. But those feelings have been largely unquantified. Now, thanks to recent work of the authors of the seminal book “Patent Failure”, James Bessen and Michael Meurer, along with a third author, Jennifer Laurissa Ford, we have perhaps the first rigorous estimate of the damage they cause. It’s even worse than we thought…

But think about this: “Non-troll patent owners cost us even more?”

That the claim from Matt Asay, who worked for Novell and Canonical. Novell makes its customers pay Microsoft for patents and Canonical nearly did the same. █

Summary: Why Google blew it as the company continues to pursue its own security rather than become more of a team player in the FOSS world

ALTHOUGH Android is not as free/libre as one might hope, it is the most likely Linux-based mobile platform to rise to greatness.

Google disappointed us on numerous occasions because rather than antagonise software patents (even with an amicus brief) it just played along with the plot and bought many patents, including software patents. It also filed applications for software patents of its own. Google is in a position where it can afford to play those messy games, but how does that help the rest of us? Android patent defence does not magically indemnify Linux.

“Of critical importance to those of us in the information technology industry are software patents, which I’ve long opposed. While this reform could have been a great time to deal with this problematic issue, that didn’t happen. Only two narrow niches–financial products and tax strategies–are addressed in a limited way, but nothing broader is included to fix the problem overall.

“Android patent defence does not magically indemnify Linux.”“Pro: Patents are limited or clarified somewhat in two narrowly defined business niches.

“Con: Overall, the ongoing software patent debacle continues unchanged, and that can only hurt small developers.”

oogle and Oracle CEOs will square off in court today to resolve a dispute that may pose the biggest threat to Google’s Android mobile software, now running on more than 150 million devices.

Google’s Larry Page and Oracle’s Larry Ellison were ordered to appear before a federal court magistrate in San Jose after tussling over patents for more than a year. Oracle accused Google of infringing on patents related to its Java software, and a settlement means the companies avoid the risk of having a jury trial decide whether Google owes royalties.

What about explaining to the court or at least to politicians the ridiculousness of those patents in general? These are the politicians who pass a fake patent ‘reform’ to wash their hands. In the sick industry of lobbying surely Google could come up with something. Its foes constantly lobby for more patents (and a global patent system), not to mention embargo. To quote this new report: “A settlement will likely require HTC to pay Apple hefty royalty fees for using its patents. The Taiwan-based company already gives Microsoft $5 for every handset sold, which brings the Redmond, Wash.-based company more revenue than from its Windows Phone sales.”

Android is getting damaged here and in order to resolve the problem for good (before Microsoft sends more and more patent trolls to raise the price of Android) Google will need to strike at the root. Samsung has a huge patents portfolio, so it can afford to seek embargo against Apple as means of deterrence. Quoting the news:

There are now 19 patent lawsuits between Samsung and Apple, in 12 courts in nine countries. In addition to the United States, Germany, and Australia, patent suits are pending in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea. Apple also has filed patent suits against HTC, Motorola Mobility and others.

Samsung is meanwhile considering more of Bada and it can afford to sue back against aggressors like Apple. But how many developers out there are able to do so? Google too has just grown up patents-wise, but it does not provide much comfort to the FOSS world at large. We must not lose sight of the real problem and the real solution to it. Google was only a potential ally in that regard. █

NONE of the writers and contributors here has a conflict of interest to declare. As far as we know, there was never someone working for a GNU/Linux vendor writing here. There were some community volunteers, sure, but none of them was connected to a company we write about such as Red Hat or Google. We are very strict about this. Speaking for myself, I would not work for a company like Google (they tried hiring me 3 times over the years) as that would invalidate a lot of what I wrote and promoted independently. Instead, I work in academia and industry, mostly administration/development/research, which makes the subject of patents very relevant. On the side I also run a couple of companies which in no way relate to what this Web site covers. Over at the IRC channels, none of us except Jono Bacon works for a GNU/Linux company, so allegations about us being “biased” would be very weak. We don’t do this for our wallet, just our ideology/beliefs. Techrights is about justice in technology. it’s not profit-obsessed. █

Summary: Bankruptcy for a Dutch company that relied on Microsoft products while providing security/encryption services

A few weeks ago we wrote about DigiNotar, noting that Windows dependence caused a huge mess. DigiNotar has just died based on reports that say it filed for bankruptcy in The Netherlands. This not only cost a lot to other companies (and their reputation) but it also compromised the identity and activity of ~300,000 Iranian internet users, potentially leading to the death of some. The crack was caused by Cain and Abel, which according to Wikipedia is “a password recovery tool for Microsoft Windows. It can recover many kinds of passwords using methods such as network packet sniffing, cracking various password hashes by using methods such as dictionary attacks, brute force and cryptanalysis attacks.”

“Proprietary software hides code and also hides the weaknesses, which doesn’t mean they are not still there.”There is another incident worthy of being mentioned. Incidentally, on the face of it, “If you use Skype on an iPhone or iPod touch, Phil Purviance can steal your device’s address book simply by sending you a chat message,” writes The Register. Apple+Microsoft Skype (proprietary)=insecurity.

This other new report from the same source says that “Apple has dropped a couple of monumental password security clangers with the release on OS X Lion, according to security blogger Patrick Dunstan.”

Hey, at least it’s shiny. Proprietary software hides code and also hides the weaknesses, which doesn’t mean they are not still there. █

“I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, and the only conclusion I can come to is that this is ethically indistinguishable from bribery. Even if no quid-pro-quo is formally required, the gift creates a social obligation of reciprocity. This is best explained in Cialdini’s book Influence (a summary is here). The blogger will feel some obligation to return the favor to Microsoft.”

Summary: Dubious ‘gifts’ from Microsoft (to the only users Microsoft sees as valued) are being converted into cash through eBay

IT MIGHT be years before Vista 8 is available for use, so we try not to mention it. Just mentioning it would help Microsoft, but it is already failing, so we thought we should make a quick post without linking to any promotional material.

“Microsoft calls it a “gift”, but we just call it a bribe and we are not alone.”As we expected all along, Microsoft was bound to bribe some bloggers or influential people for positive coverage (see this previous time). Microsoft does this every time and some days ago it gave 5,000 free Samsung-built tablets. According to reports, some of these ended up on eBay because recipients were not impressed and preferred turning Microsoft’s tablet bribe into cash. Microsoft calls it a “gift”, but we just call it a bribe and we are not alone.

Respecting users is a priority to the openSUSE Project so when something does not work the way it should be, taking a step back is more preferable than delivering something that is not ready yet. For that reason yesterday afternoon Greg K.H. announced to the openSUSE-factory mailing list that systemd is being removed from Tumbleweed so that users won’t have a problem with it. That way it will allow developers to spend more time on working on it in order to have systemd ready for the upcoming 12.1 instead of chasing problems that are specific to Tumbleweed.

Another way to put it is, we tried working with this piece of software which is not being developed by us, but we failed too badly, causing irritation. So now we move away from it. Other distributions do not seem to have this problem. █